Friday, Sep. 9, 2011

Deora Bodley was 20 years old and was flying home to begin her junior year at Santa Clara. She was aboard United Airlines Flight 93 when al-Qaida terrorists hijacked it. The plane crashed in a field in Shanksville, Penn., killing all aboard. She was studying French and psychology and hoped to be a child psychologist.

Bodley was actively involved with community service from high school on, and she tutored at St. Clare’s parish school across the street from campus. One of those children wrote on her memorial: “Deora made the sun brighter.”

A rose was planted in her memory near the Mission Church and a fund established to benefit the children of St. Clare’s. “We see the face of God in Deora’s love for family and friends,” said President Paul Locatelli, S.J. ’60, “in her service to the community, in her concern for others, and in her smile and laughter.”

Capt. Lawrence Daniel Getzfred ’71 was a no-nonsense Navy man: “Get it done, get it done right.” But he was much more than that.

A Nebraska native with four brothers in the Navy and 38 years of service around the world—including active duty in the wars in Vietnam and the Persian Gulf—he was awarded numerous decorations and he was on his second tour of duty in the Naval Command Center in the Pentagon when terrorists crashed American Airlines Flight 77 into the building, killing 125 people on the ground and all aboard the plane.

Getzfred was 57 years old and was taken from his loving wife, Pat, and two daughters, ages 11 and 12, for whom he enjoyed building marvelously intricate dollhouses in his spare time.

His younger brother Mark, a deputy weekend editor for the New York Times, has written a moving tribute—which also offers some insightful personal reflections on the tragedy of Sept. 11, 2001, and all that has happened since. Read that here.